Perla IrishMothers have to wear a lot of hats. They are household managers, chauffeurs, laundresses, cooks, teachers, secretaries, referees – and truthfully, just mothers to their children, with all the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical needs that entail.
Mothers are busy, regardless of whether they spend the bulk of their days at home or outside of it.
Couldn’t you use some more breathing room? Then read on for some tips to help you save some of your precious time.
Get Organized
True, this tip isn’t going to save you time right at the onset. It takes time to get organized. But afterward, what rewards your reap! No more hunting for the right pair of cleats, no more scrambling through paperwork to find a birth certificate, no more missing anniversaries and birthdays.
Going methodically room by room, take stock of all of the clothing for each member of the family. What do they need for the next season? What no longer even fits? Go through the paperwork piles and organize them, tossing out what you really don’t need. Sort through the toys with your children.
What toys do they truly love? What can be donated to those who have less? Then, with all the excess bagged up and out of the house, make sure that everything left in your house has a place. Baskets, file folders, and boxes are your friends!
Outsource
For most mothers, there’s at least one part of managing a household that feels particularly heavy. Different women are better at different chores. There’s no shame in that!
Thankfully, with a little bit of budgeting, you can outsource whatever your heaviest burden might be. You can get your groceries shopped for you to pick up curbside or be delivered to your house.
You can hire a housecleaner to come in once or twice a month. There are services to handle your laundry, your lawn, walking the dogs. You can even use a meal delivery service to handle all the meal planning for you and ship the ingredients straight to your door.
Unplug
Have you ever checked to see how much time you spend on your cell phone each day? For most people, it’s a bit of a reality check. We think we are strapped for time, and then find that we spend two hours each day scrolling through social media.
Take control of your screen time and use that time for better things! Many smartphones have screen time controls, which you can even password protect so that you aren’t tempted to bypass them.
Turn off most of your notifications so they won’t distract you needlessly. Leave your phone in a designated spot during the day, and put it in there to charge overnight. You’ll sleep better without that post-bed scroll!
Meal Prep
It takes a significant amount of time to plan meals, shop for groceries, cook meals, and pack lunches every day. You can save time – and money! – by doing these tasks en masse.
Instead of having to spend mental energy answering the “what’s for supper?” question every day, plan your meals and snacks a week at a time. When you get your groceries, do some batch cooking.
Make a stack of breakfast burritos for quick, nutritious breakfasts that will require no further effort of time from you for the rest of the week. Make all the lunches for the week, either by prepping sandwiches or batch cooking some chicken and vegetables.
Get Up and Get Going
Too many moms are running on too little sleep. Some of that can’t be helped – it’s par for the course with pregnancies and infants. But particularly if you are not in those seasons, take an honest look at when you need to go to bed and wake up in order for you to get enough sleep and also be ready for the day.
Set your alarms – and then stick to them! Don’t waste your precious time with the snooze button. Also, consider waking up earlier. If you wait until the kids wake you up, you’re playing catch-up before your feet even hit the floor. Get up before them to drink your coffee, glance over your to-do list, get in a workout, or spend time spiritually.
